NP – but Ali

[Jochen Stremmel]

Anybody read the article with this paragraph:

“It just bothers me,” I told him. I was thinking about the obvious ironies,
thinking about Ali continuing to invent, and be invented by, his own
mythology. About how he used to talk easier, maybe better, than anybody in
the world (has anyone in history so enjoyed the sweet and spiky melodies of
his own voice?); about how he sometimes still thought with speed and
dazzle, but it took serious effort for him to communicate even with people
close to him. About how he may have been the world’s best athlete—when
walking, he used to move with the grace of a leopard turning a corner; now,
at night, he stumbled around the house. About how it was his left hand, the
same hand from which once slid that great Ali snake-lick of a jab—the most
visible phenomenon of his boxing greatness—the very hand with which he won
more than 150 sanctioned fights and countless sparring sessions, it’s *his
left hand*, not his right, that shook almost continuously. And I was
thinking how his major source of pride, his “prettiness,” remained more or
less intact. If Ali lost 40 pounds, in the right kind of light he’d still
look classically Greek. The seeming precision with which things have been
excised from Ali’s life (as well as the gifts that have been left him) sort
of spooked me.
?
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